Squee

Three years into a desperate journey home, a small crew is trapped aboard a failing spaceship, surviving on scant food, recycled water, and scarcely any privacy. Their cramped existence has driven tempers to the breaking point, but the good-natured Jacobsen keeps quarrels from becoming disasters. Meanwhile, the ship’s most resented passenger, cytologist Thomas Neil, works in a bright, isolated laboratory on a project that may determine whether humanity has any future.

Neil is attempting something that sounds impossible: creating an artificial human egg from sperm cells. His research could offer a way around the biological damage linked to his infamous father—and perhaps help restore a population stranded on a ruined Earth. But as the crew faces a hazardous landing and dwindling hope, the question becomes more troubling than the science itself: if survival depends on crossing a line that should never be crossed, will humanity have learned anything at all? This thoughtful science-fiction tale combines claustrophobic spaceflight, inventive biology, and moral tension.